Confessions of an SEO®

Thank you to Ahrefs Marketing Platform for sponsoring this episode. Learn about Ahrefs Webmaster Tools and get started for free https://ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_2025 Now that we're full on into the breakdown of the traditional model of SEO as a service, it got me to wondering WHY helpful conten...

Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to learn about Patches - ⁠https://ahrefs.com/blog/site-audit-patches/?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_2025  Launching new content into a Core Update? Are you crazy??? Crazy like a fox! In this episode I share an unorthodox approach to content strategy while an update is ru...

Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to learn about AI Content Helper - https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-content-helper/?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_2025  In this episode I sort through some recent articles about the impact of AI overlays on the business of SEO. Is there such a thing as a "GOOD" AI? Looking fo...

Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to learn about Brand Radar ⁠ https://ahrefs.com/brand-radar?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_2025 I have for a long time loved software that provides correlational data - the things that move together in search results. Its been a part of SEO testing - that’s how we could te...

Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to gain AHrefs certification https://ahrefs.com/certification?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_2025 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Looking for a TOC wordpress plugin that does NOT "confuse" Googlebots. We're close. ⁠⁠⁠https://carolynholzman.com/fix-the-canonical-scoring-in-helpful-content/⁠⁠⁠ Last...

Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to get started with Site Explorer   ⁠https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_2025⁠ This past week there was a huge uproar within the SEO community and it had to do with Cyrus Shepard’s dissection of a wave of reputation management style content post...

Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to get started with   https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_2025 This week's show started out as an AI crawler test then a "whose content is it" conversation culminating in Jenny Jenny Abouobaia's Linkedin post titled, " Goo...

Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to get started with   https://ahrefs.com/rank-tracker?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_2025 ⁠ In this episode I do a compare and contrast between an honest and transparent sharing of an established publisher who got caught in a helpful content snare and my analysis of sites...

Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to get started with   https://ahrefs.com/site-audit?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_202 https://ahrefs.com/site-audit This week I found out that Google Search Team agrees with me - Table of Content links are hurting people's sites. Thanks to the generosity of Tomiko Har...

Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to get started with Keyword Explorer ⁠⁠https://ahrefs.com/keywords-explorer In this week's Confessions I am sharing the data breakthrough on my Helpful Content Analysis. Short answer. What if Big Data Obscures what can only be seen at the atomic level of a site - two urls, one day, one search term? Last week's episode - Meet Googl...

Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to get started with ⁠ Ahrefs Web Analytics . ⁠ https://ahrefs.com/web-analytics?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_2025⁠ In this week's Confessions I'm introducing my field observation about GoogleOther crawler that comes to new content with a Google build. Its kind of...

Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to get started with Ahrefs Webmaster Tools . https://ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_2025 In this week's Confessions I share the results of a test that I was running subconsciously! OK, it was by accident that I set this up but WOW did this gi...

Today I'm going to a new hunch about the volatility in search results as measured by the SEO weather tools like Semrush and others. SEO tools that measure the volatility within the results on a daily basis. Conventional wisdom would say the times when the volatility is high is NOT the time to take measurements with SEO tool that use correlational math - like Cora SEO software. But is that true...

Accidentally, I learned that THIS episode is the 200th episode of Confessions of an SEO! Yay me! I’ve learned a lot and this week I’m going to go through three ideas or conceptions that the SEO community holds in regards to indexing that I’d like to debunk. 1. Indexers index content because they have a special door into to Google 2. Indexers produce a crawl on demand - think Google’s indexing API...

Wasn't sure exactly what the topic was this week until I just stopped thinking about it - and it came. In today's show I talk a little about one of my favorite time period and place of my movies and books and smash right into wondering if this is the Golden Age or Gilded Age of AI. Hope you enjoy it. Youtube Channel - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@ConfessionsofanSEO⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

Finally, now we know what EEAT is about - not! But what we do know is what it is NOT and that many in our industry have been claiming they did something that according to John Mueller is just not possible. Youtube Channel - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@ConfessionsofanSEO⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ <-------- Crawl or No Crawl Knowledge panel Tools that I use an...

Yes, that is my data-driven analysis from server logs - its over and the whole process is nearly complete. In this episode I talk about the new Chrome bot seen on March 20th and how a news story from February was discernible within server logs. I kid you not. Youtube Channel - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@ConfessionsofanSEO⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ <-------- Cra...

This week it would wrong of me not to talk about the current running Core update that started on March 13th. Something very interesting is under the hood and "might" be the reason there aren't a lot of anecdotal gnashing of teeth. Also in this week, I break down how I KNOW with certainty that Google's Indexing API is useless for the average site. Youtube Channel - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ww...

So much data, so many things to talk about. If you want to get the skinny on this data through the eyes of an indexation and serving expert - you won't want to miss this. Mentioned in the show Part 1 of What 16 Million Pages Can Say [insert link here] Article on Indexing and Serving Data on 16 Million Page ⁠https://indexcheckr.com/resources/google-indexing⁠ Youtube Channel - ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.yo...

What a load of data! That's what I thought when I read a new analysis from LinkCheckr on 16 million pages and their state of indexing. If you want to get the skinny on this data through the eyes of an indexation and serving expert - you won't want to miss this. Mentioned in the show Article on Indexing and Serving Data on 16 Million Page https://indexcheckr.com/resources/google-indexing Trad keywo...

Keyword research has been the foundational activity in SEO since, well, forever. Grab a list of search phrases and optimize a page for each was standard when I entered into SEO. But data reveals that "trad" keyword research is not getting us what we or our clients want. There is a new idea on the block - espoused by myself and others. This week I share an article by Dale Bertrand from Se...

Where do you get your SEO knowledge? How much information out there is just a repeat of what you can read already and perhaps walk away with a higher understanding from the original? I call article like the one I talk about today as Fast Food SEO journalism. And its everywhere. I happen to have a passion about Table of Content links so when there's an article that implies Google says # in URLs...

In this episode you will hear about one of my test sites that took a "dirt nap". If you don't know what that means, count yourself lucky! Mentioned in the Show - Last week's episode where I shared my threshold details https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcL6uHMkepw Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@ConfessionsofanSEO ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ <-------- Crawl o...

In this episode we're gonna get to brass tacks on backlinks and reasons why if you build them on sites or in a fashion that is NOT going to permit Google to take them into the index and/or serve, you're wasting your time. Think of this as know before you go with that backlink source. Get 45% off Magic Mind bundle with my link: ⁠⁠https://magicmind.com/confessions #magicmind #mentalwealth #m...

Have you had "scaling" conversations without know they were "scaling" conversations? How much of our time could be saved if we figured out if it NEEDED to be scales vs just assume everything worth doing is ONLY worth doing if you can scale it. Get 45% off Magic Mind bundle with my link: ⁠https://magicmind.com/confessionsjan⁠ #magicmind #mentalwealth #mentalperformance ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf...